


Foundations

by proxydialogue



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Spoilers for Desolation of Smaug, a small conversation in the dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 12:26:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1119811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proxydialogue/pseuds/proxydialogue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of a burglar and a king...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foundations

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Scarletjedi, who beta'd.

He read the voice of his madness in the canyons of his palms. As he sat in the dusky shadows of Thranduil’s dungeon, tracing his fingertips over blisters and calluses, he read the madness like it was written out in a language for the blind. Spelled across his flesh in the tongue of his name; a long lash of family history. 

A fault line. 

Bilbo Baggins didn’t see it. Hobbits couldn’t read in the dark. Bilbo held Thorin’s hand like it was an uncut stone, instead of a map. (And what a horrible satire, that Bilbo should have such a love for maps and be utterly unable to read the one in Thorin: it had only one road, after all.) The hobbit sat wedged up against the low door so he could reach through the bars. His hands were always warm and his voice was always shivering. 

“I think I can get us out,” he said. 

“Where did you go?” Thorin asked. “You’ve been gone for two days.” He could just make out the shapes of the stairs outside his cell, but he couldn’t see Bilbo. Even the hobbit’s breathing was quiet. Thorin sometimes thought that an afternoon sun couldn’t find Bilbo on a sheer mountain face, if he didn’t want to be found. Although Bilbo, it seemed, could find almost anything at all. 

He’d found his lost friends spun all into midnight webs, in a forest so vast it might have been a sea. After their capture, he’d found each member of the company in turn, where they were tucked away in isolated corners of the elvish dungeon. Thorin he’d found last of all, hidden down among the roots and the cold stones. 

“Here you are!” the Hobbit had whispered through the damp and the draft, the sound of his voice pulling Thorin out of a troubled doze. Thorin had unwrapped his fingers to grasp the bones of his prison and found instead the scraped knuckles of a burglar. “I was looking for you so long I was beginning to think they’d buried you alive,” Bilbo had said. That had been week ago. It was Bilbo who kept track of the days as they passed. 

“I slipped out behind a hunting party,” Bilbo said, in answer to Thorin’s question, “I had hoped they would lead me to the path, so when I do spring you loose I’d know what to,” he cleared his throat, “what to do next.”

“This is their home,” Thorin said. “The elves have no need of a path.” 

“I couldn’t keep up with them anyway,” Bilbo confessed. He dropped his head against the side of the bars. “And after that I got myself locked out. Had to wait for the door to open again so I could slip back in.” He sounded tired, but not beaten. That was another thing about Bilbo, he was bottomless somehow. Thorin thought to brush the fringe of curls back from the hobbit’s brow, but of course he couldn’t be sure of finding it. “And I’ve discovered the guard who holds your keys,” said Bilbo, softly. He shifted, and now, by some trick of the shade, Thorin could see him. Bilbo pulled his other hand out of his pocket and scratched at the iron with his thumb. “Yes,” Bilbo muttered, almost to himself. “I’m sure I can get you out.” 

All of that, the threat of freedom, the resumption of their quest, the promise of his homeland, should have mattered much more to Thorin than the ghostly press of Bilbo’s shoulder against his own when he leaned against the bars. But it was difficult, so difficult to care so much about what he’d already mourned and lost, when this new doom was on him. 

Bilbo Baggins, hobbit of the Shire, who couldn’t have shaped a horseshoe if all the forges of Erebor were at his disposal, stretched his legs out on the dirt floor and held a king together with one hand. His fingers, threaded through Thorin’s, were soft and scarred, and pitifully raw with adventure.

“Be ready,” Bilbo whispered. “Tomorrow night. I didn’t find the road, but I think I found another route to the mountain.” 

Thorin closed his eyes and saw gold and white jewels behind them. He squeezed Bilbo’s hand, gently, and wondered if it was too early to ask for forgiveness? 

Maybe his dooms were all one in the same.


End file.
